President Obama doesn’t agree with his former attorney general that classified-info leaker Edward Snowden performed a “public service” when he leaked classified data to the media.
“The president has had the opportunity to speak on this a number of times, and I think a careful review of his public comments would indicate that he does not,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday of whether Obama shared ex-AG Eric Holder’s view of Snowden.
His statement came a day after Holder said during the podcast “The Axe Files” that the debate over secrecy and privacy sparked by the Snowden case was a positive development.
“He’s broken the law, in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back and decide, see what he wants to do: go to trial, try to cut a deal,” Holder told former Obama aide David Axelrod.
He added, “I think there has to be a consequence for what he has done. We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made.”
Earnest said Obama would agree with much of that sentiment — but would not characterize Snowden’s alleged crimes as a public service.
“I would point out that even Mr. Holder pointed out in that interview that ‘He’s broken the law, in my view,’ ” Earnest said.
Snowden, 32, turned to Twitter to mockingly compare the evolving schools of thought on his leak.
“2013: It’s treason! 2014: Maybe not, but it was reckless 2015: Still, technically it was unlawful 2016: It was a public service but,” he wrote.
Snowden leaked classified information as a contractor for the National Security Agency in 2013.
He fled to Hong Kong and then Russia, where he lives under the protection of strongman Vladimir Putin.
